I loved the chocolate chip cookie mix from cravings, it remains my number one and it’s the closest thing to homemade you can find in stores. I’m so excited to dive into this mix today, johns glorious golden cookie, it has peanut butter, brown sugar, oats, and cornflakes, what a combination huh? I can honestly say I’ve never tasted or even heard of a cookie like this and I’m excited to see how it is. I bought this cookie mix a little bit ago so I want to note that at this time, cravings has gone through a packaging rebranding and looks very different now and more colorful so when you’re in the stores looking for this mix, keep that in mind.
This box mix calls for a stick of butter and an egg yolk. I combined these ingredients with the cookie dough powder and it was somewhat dry so I had to stop mixing with a spatula and start squishing the dough with my hands to get it to finally combine. I’m not sure if my butter was just too firm still but I had to resist the urge to add water into this dough, I didn’t want to change the course of the box mix but it was definitely drier than I would expect a cookie dough to be.
Woah, what’s that? A new photo spot? Yes you saw correctly. I am in a new kitchen! I haven’t picked the perfect photo spot yet so I’m sure you’ll see it move around in each blog and eventually a full kitchen remodel is coming in so keep an eye open for brand new countertops, I can’t wait! Okay, back to the cookies.
The cookie dough tasted fantastic. Like a sweet and salty really good brown sugar oatmeal. I do absolutely love the amount of salt that cravings puts into their cookie mixes, it really ties the flavors together and enhances them. I wasn’t picking up on the peanut butter so I’d say it was more subtle than I expected and looking at the ingredients it turns out, they use peanut flour but not peanut butter which explains the subtle flavor but the “peanut butter” claim on the front feels like false advertising. You can tell someone at the company agrees with me considering the new packaging says “peanut” instead.
One of the notes on the box recommended splitting the included bag of corn flakes in half, putting half in the dough and using the other half to roll the dough in, so I went ahead and did this. The box calls for 2 tablespoon sized balls of dough so I scooped this out, rolled it into a ball, and rolled it in the cornflakes. Due to the almost dryness of the dough they didn’t stick well and I really had to force them onto the cookie dough.
The box says to place the cookies 4 inches apart so I am expecting a lot of spreading. I put 8 cookies on a pan and only had two dough balls left which comes to a total of 10 when it’s supposed to make 12 so that is a bummer because I measured the dough exactly and still didn’t get a full dozen. A box mix that only makes 10 cookies is a huge disappointment to me, the bare minimum is a dozen and a lot of mixes make 2 or 3 dozens. This brand of box mix is expensive as well, I found this one on sale at grocery outlet and I can’t recall the price but currently at Safeway and Smiths it’s between $8-$9 for one box. You can buy a 3 pack online for around $30 depending on the site. For only 10 cookies, this price is disappointing. It makes it impractical to take these cookies to an event to share and I really think this unique cookie would be a hit at any cookout, book club, or party. I wouldn’t spend $30 to bring box mix cookies to an event. I’d be buying something premade from the store for cheaper or going homemade.
The sheet pan of cookies went in the oven at 350 for 14 minutes. The box states “for softer chewier cookies, bake for 14-15 minutes. For a crispy cookie, bake 15-16 minutes.” In my new kitchen, I have a brand new oven that bakes so differently from my last oven. I want to take this time to remind everyone that every oven is different and you can’t trust the box mix suggested bake times, you have to keep an eye on your baked goods. For my oven in this case, 14 minutes was perfect, they looked a little underdone but the bottoms started to brown so that’s how you know it’s time to pull them out and let them sit to solidify into cookie form.
The cookies came out looking pretty similar to how they went in. They flattened a bit but didn’t spread as much as I expected, they’re pretty average cookie size and definitely didn’t need the extra room on the pan. Remember how I had trouble getting the corn flakes to stick to the dough? They remained separate from the cookie. I picked up a cookie and almost all the cornflakes fell off. I think you would be better off just mixing these all into the dough instead of half of them.
I can honestly say I have never had anything like this cookie. The texture is amazing. The flavor is beyond words. I went into this expecting peanut butter cookies with cornflakes and got a delicacy instead. You have to try this for yourself, especially if you don’t like oats in cookies because I have to confess, that’s me. I’d avoid an oat cookie and reach for something else but this cookie doesn’t deserve to be overlooked. It deserves to be savored. This cookie is sweet and salty, soft and crunchy, honestly everything a cookie should be. Cravings has blown me away again with accurate bake times, accurate pictures of the product, and an amazing product worth the money. I can’t wait to start trying their cake mixes.
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